CO433-Advanced Robotics

Course Aims

This course addresses topics of advanced robotics, with a focus on real-time state estimation and mapping, with application to drones and Augmented and Virtual Reality.

We build on the knowledge acquired in the Robotics course 333. In this respect, the covered challenges are extended towards 6D motion estimation and control, focusing on the camera as a core sensor. We furthermore discuss fusion with complementary sensors such as Inertial Measurement Units, which have recently become very popular.

The objective of this course is to provide the understanding, mathematical tools, and practical experience that allow students to implement their own multi-sensor Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM) algorithms for deployment on a broad range of mobile robots, such as a multicopter Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) – which we will do in the practicals.

The practicals lead on to the “Amazin’ Challenge” to be held in the last session: students work on a multicopter UAS to be operating autonomously with on-board vision-based state estimation and control such that a simple delivery task can be achieved reliably, accurately, and fast.